Tyler Durden

This was my first PPV to watch since Mania.

I thought it was a reasonable 2.5 to 3 star effort.

My thoughts would be -

Kane -vs- Finlay

Good traditional style opener. Finlay is a hell of a worker that gets good efforts out of just about anyone he's in there with. Kane came out of this looking good with his win, and they added a nice little bit of comedy in there with Hornswoggle's interruption. Nice opener.

Umaga -vs- Kennedy -vs- Carlito

Not sure what to make of this. The group doesn't seem to have done anything really with Umaga for him to be getting the kind of face reaction that they want him to have, and consequently he got a nice reaction but nothing special. Crowd sounded dead during Kennedy's intro and mic spot. Carlito looked like the 3rd wheel and didn't look good enough to be in even these guys company. The guy lacks any sort of intensity, anger or emotion in his performances. I'm starting to think he was actually better in his initial two month run in WWE than he is something like 4 years later. IC Belt would suit Kennedy more than Umaga at this stage......but this was okay, nothing special, but okay.

John Morrison -vs- CM Punk

Nice little match, though relatively short. I predicted wrongly on this one, as with many matches on this show. I guess WWE has invested so much effort into Morrison that they don't want to give up on him yet in this role. I've not heard his promos really, but on this evidence he carries this role off relatively well, but I'll need to see more programming to make my mind up. I thought after Punk getting a role with Vince on ECW last week that this was the start of his title reign. Tough to see where he goes after this, doesn't he have like three PPV defeats to Morrison now? What with being squashed by Big Daddy V as well a couple of weeks back, where next for Punk?

Chavo -vs- Rey

Good match. Nice spots, nice working over of the knee, good story played out. Apart from Rey's intro music, his stupid ass body paint and his constant adjusting of his mask (ffs stop ruining match matches like your one at Mania with Eddie with masks that don't work!) this was very fine.

Diva Battle Royal

One of the few I predicted right. Some nice bumps from the non-workers to the outside, shame that the only one particularly over (Mickie) continues to be underused. I thought McCool looked like she'd learnt a few things in the ring and didn't look too bad in there.

Booker -vs- Triple H

Good stuff, not quite the blow your socks off reaction I expected to Hunter's return (great but not mind blowing), he didn't look rusty much, the match was fine. Nothing special, but a nice return though the post match was slightly over doing it!

Khali- -vs- Big Dave

Just couldn't watch all of this without watching it on double speed on the sky plus! Even then it was pretty slow and boring. Big Dave tried his best but there's little you can do with Khali. Hopefully Taker comes back and get's him out of the way come October ish. Finish and manner of it was entirely predictable and at the same time completely illogical (guy doing the dominating decided to cheat to retain title, even though he was in charge at the time, why??)

Orton -vs- Cena

Good match. WWE did a cracking job of building it up etc to seem totally like a change was happening tonight, to the point that I thought "When Orton wins this, it's going to seem like it was a main event squash, Cena has hardly had any offense at all". I was very surprised they retained the belt for Cena, but am not (unlike many others) a Cena hater at all. He's by no means a "bad" ring performer, he's a good mic guy, he makes more money for the company than anyone else, therefore he is the Champ. I do think that at some stage in the last year of two he should have come out of the main event scene for a few months, but hey ho, it is what it is, and Cena does a terrific job in his role (imo). Hell, people slammed Hunter for years when he was in this spot and now they seem to think all his forgiven and he should be in Cena's spot now!? Things just maybe should have been freshened a little in the last year.

Other spots

The Vince's son backstage skits were pretty damn predictable and "on paper" would have looked like bad comedy. They only just pull them off because Regal & Vince in particular are so fine in these roles. Regal's dancing with Cryme Tyme, Coach and Teddy made me laugh out loud. Vince's reaction to the lame and obvious Mae Young snog was priceless ("chicken soup?!")

Stone Cold's role was obvious too. It was okay, but I think I would have just preferred something involved just V1 and MVP. They have excellent chemisty and I'm enjoying their TV moments very much without the need for Stone Cold (did he say even 1 word in this "moment") being used.